When is it over?
When are we done?
When have our lives
Finished their run?
A stroke of his scythe
Took half of her brain,
And left organs failing
In a cascading chain.
Though unconscious, she lingered,
Her breath fed by machine,
In a place neither here nor there
But somewhere between.
When she was younger
And could still speak her mind
She said, “When my time comes,
Please let me die. That would be kind.”
But now the end is near and
Her old body is ready to go.
It’s so hard for them to say goodbye,
And accept what they know.
Because she loved them,
There was nothing they lacked.
Because they love her,
It’s time to give back.
The machines and tubes are gone now.
The lights are dimmed and she’s resting in peace.
They sit by her side and watch her last breaths.
“We love you, Mom. Thank you. Godspeed.”
As I write this, my husband and his sisters are sitting with their 94-year-old mother as she dies. She often said that the one thing she feared the most was to have a stroke that would destroy her brain, leaving her to linger trapped in a useless body. She had watched her mother-in-law’s life end that way, and she asked her children not to let that happen to her.
Yesterday morning (Saturday), she had a massive stroke that destroyed the right side of her brain. Medical science can keep her alive, but it can never give her back what she has lost. Were she to live, she would be paralyzed on the left side and blind in the left eye, which is the only eye with any vision left. She would probably be unable to speak and be understood. And she would never again be able to appreciate music, which was one of the few pleasures she had left.
As hard as it is for her children to honor her wishes, they love her, and so they have. Tonight, the respirator and all the tubes were removed. Without them, her breath will likely slow, and then end in a few days. She will be kept comfortable, and allowed to go peacefully, her family at her side.
Godspeed, Mary.
Update: She died Wednesday night, slipping away peacefully with her family around her.
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